Kewaunee County and a "Flecken" Called Franksville

When John Herbeck, Sr. died five months short of his 100^th birthday in 1942, the paper recalled that John had come to Kewaunee Co. 60 years earlier, about 1888, with his wife Mary and children, settling on a farm in the community known as Franksville. After three years there, they moved to another Casco Town farm, cutting timber and clearing the land. Herbeck could not tolerate idleness and was still working hard farming until just a few years before his death.

But Franksville? Where was that? It wasn’t in the Kewaunee County Town of Franksville named in honor of John Franks in whose home the town’s organizational meeting was held. The Town of Franksville wasn’t around long before it was renamed Town of Franklin. Adding to the confusion, Franksville was also known as Adams Corners. Adams Corners?

Finding Franksville is a challenge today. The miniscule crossroads community of Franksville was close to the tiny community of Clyde and the community of Slovan, which was nearly big enough to be a hamlet. Franksville boasted a cheese factory, a school and even a carpet weaver. Franksville also boasted fine folks with such surnames as Lazansky, Kinstetter, Thiry, Novotny, Lukes, Ouradnik, Worachek, Hostak, Paplham, Urban, Novak, Altman, and Kelliher, names still found in the towns of Casco and West Kewaunee. Had the early folks been German, rather than predominently Bohemian,  the place might have been called “Franksflecken.” “Flecken” is a German word for “spot,” and Franksville was indeed a spot.

Franksville is at the point where Casco Sections 26, 27, 34 and 35 meet. The railroad at Clyde Station is approximately 1.4 miles from Franksville on this 1912 Kewaunee Co. Plat Map. Franksville/Rosebud School is in Section 26, while the cheese factory is across the road in Section 27. The road separating the sections is now called Rosebud Road.

Folks were informed about the goings-on in Franksville mostly by reading the Algoma Record Herald or the Enterprise. For years, Franksville had its own correspondent to the papers so that news was kept up to date. Everyone knew who passed through the place on their way to Slovan, Casco or to a larger world. They knew in December 1915 that George Cain who was employed in Franksville went home to Casco to spend Christmas with his parents. Readers knew all about Agnes Opicka from Slovan who taught in Casco District #1, Franksville School, which was being identified as Rosebud School in 1921. In April 1920 Joseph Ouradnik and William Lazansky of Franksville went to Casco to look at autos, and from all the grain Bill Herrick was hauling to market, folks surely knew the money he was making would pay for a truck to enable even more hauling.

The Franksville correspondent and all the other correspondents to the papers in a by-gone era were the Facebook of the times, however when Sunday visitors stayed for dinner, there were no pictures of the food or anything else to show one was there. Sometimes, the correspondent didn’t get the news in on time. That prompted the Enterprise to say in May 1913 that not much was going on in Franksville because there was no news. The reporter asked, “What’s the trouble?” In the 1940s, the Casco and Slovan correspondents took over the Franksville news, and a separate Franksville column disappeared. Within the next few years, mentions of Franksville ceased to exist in all but a few obituaries.

Franksville/Rosebud School

The news from school was always important, and the news was big in February 1913 when there was a spelldown between Rostok and Franksville schools. It was the Alaska correspondent doing the reporting, and that reporter seemed biased when Franksville lost. The reporter poured salt on the wounds, saying Franksville should cheer up because they would have another chance. There seemed to be some rivalry between the Alaska and Franksville correspondents because the Franksville writer said he/she never resorted to sarcasm or digs, and the Alaska writer’s attack was unjustified. The Alaska scribe went on to snip that Franksville people should quit reading the news of a pessimist. Snippiness appeared in print 100 years ago. Today it is on any channel that carries “news.”

Franksville captured attention in February 1911 during a four-day trial in Judge J.H. DeWane’s court. It was not a murder case that took most of the week: Bohumil Baumgartner sued to recover $122 for milk he claimed was sold to Joseph Adams who operated his cheese factory on a commission basis. At the time suit was brought, Adams had not paid Baumgartner because he (Adams) had not been paid for his shipment to a larger company. However, he had been paid before the trial began, so had the funds. Who would think a four-day trial was necessary to determine the plaintiff was owed $109, which he finally accepted and settled the case?

Franksville Cheese Factory taken from the
Heritage Hill website

It was Adam’s cheese factory that keeps Franskville in the world of 2022. The cheese factory is part of the agriculture heritage section of Heritage Hill, the beautiful state park overlooking the Fox River on Webster Avenue, just off Highway 172, in Green Bay.

Heritage Hill’s website says the cheese factory was built by A. Anashek in 1894 and sold to Joseph and Mary Adams a year later. Key-word searches of the Algoma and Kewaunee papers fail to bring up Anashek, but there is news about the factory.

Joseph Adams was still operating the business in April 1904 when the Enterprise called attention to the new cheese factory equipment for both Joseph Adams and Hoebrecks Bros. of Tonet that came into Kewaunee harbor via water, and then taken by team to the respective locations. It is curious that Adams’ equipment wasn’t taken by train, which came to a mile from his factory. It would have eliminated the heavy equipment traveling on still primitive roads.

J.F. Adams operated the cheese factory at Adams Corner/Franksville until Frank Paplham purchased it. Then Adams relocated to Port Arthur, Texas, where, for several years, he was working in the oil fields in that state. By late 1913, he was interested in oil drilling in Kewaunee County.

Paplham didn’t run the cheese factory long before selling it, and his store, to employee Joseph Ouradnik in March 1917. The Enterprise said Joseph W. Ouradnik left his position on the stage to enter merchandizing and cheese making while saying Joe was well-known and all wished him well. From the stage to cheesemaking? Slovan had an active dramatic society that performed at Ripley’s Hall, which appears to be the stage Joseph Ouradnik left.

The Enterprise reported Paplham’s sale to W. Ouradnik (rather than Joseph Ouradnik) of Slovan at a price of $6,500 in a deal closed by Joseph Jirtle. Ouradnik planned to remodel and take charge of the store and large factory on April 1. When the Record Herald commented on the sale, it opined that the Franksville factory had one of the county’s best locations. In the facility’s updates,  Joe’s brother James Ouradnik of Slovan hauled cement for the new concrete floor in the make room work. “Kidap” – which seems to be Joe Ouradnik’s nickname – installed two new cheese vats and made repairs to the whey butter machine. In September 1918, Pat Burke and Son upgraded buildings at Franksville when they installed lightning rods on Ouradnik’s cheese factory and other buildings.

There was another Ouradnik in Franksville. Ed was the carpet weaver. He made news in February 1915 when thread prices were soaring. Ed was forced to raise prices while making it clear that labor prices and other supplies weren’t going up, however he would raise prices from 22 cents to 25 cents per yard to cover the thread. A carpet weaver in such a small place seems peculiar, but Mr. Ouradnik had competition throughout the area.

Although the small area could support a carpet weaver, a patrolman on such primitive roads seems like a stretch. But the area had one.

It was November 1920 when the Enterprise told subscribers that because Kewaunee County petitioned Wisconsin Highway Commission for aid on the new construction work to the County System of Protective State-Aid Highways, there was the possibility of a county patrolman being placed on the road. One hundred years later, a patrolman on that section of road would be a head-scratcher, however in 1920, Franksville, Slovan, and Clyde were busy places in the Town of Casco, especially after the railroad went through in 1892. Primitive roads or not, law and order was called for.

It started when the County Board added the West Kewaunee highway known as the River Road to the County System of Protective State-aid Highways. The highway began on State Trunk Line 17 (today Highway 42) in the City of Kewaunee near the Glandt-Kuffan and Priebe warehouse, now Port ‘O Call. Running along River Road through Sections 2 and 12 in the Town of West Kewaunee and into Casco Town along the line to Kinstetter Corner, the road went north one mile to intersect with State Trunk 76 at the Adams cheese factory, the site called Franksville.

The people of Franksville were hard working normal people doing the things normal people do. Their children went to Rosebud School, presented programs at Christmas, made valentines for their February 14^th party, observed George Washington’s birthday and other patriotic days. The kids played baseball at school, competed with other rural schools, and celebrated at the school picnics.

Even as news from Franksville faded away, the community was periodically mentioned. Franksville news and humor made the Record Herald in November 1950 when Joe Crabb won a duck at a church picnic sometime earlier. Maybe Joe’s duck was lonesome. Who knows? But he took the duck to Franksville where he put it in the water with other ducks. While the duck was getting used to the new area, it suddenly took off running, taking flight and flying away over the schoolhouse. Joe was quoted saying, “It flew the coop.” The "flecken" called Franksville disappeared too.

Sources: Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record Herald, Here Comes the Mail: Post Offices of Kewaunee Couty, Kewaunee Enterprise, 1912 Kewaunee County Plat Map.